


The Tryst

by luna_libertatis



Series: Original Poetry [1]
Category: Original Work
Genre: F/M, Other, Poetry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-31
Updated: 2019-10-31
Packaged: 2021-01-15 17:57:47
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 461
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21257324
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/luna_libertatis/pseuds/luna_libertatis
Summary: A meeting under the full moon.





	The Tryst

* * *

The crickets sing and my old scar aches;  
Both herald the impending moonrise.  
Yet, in this moment, I still have a choice:  
To bar the door  
Or to open it.

And then I think of you.

With shaking hands  
(While I still have hands)  
I grasp the knob.

I turn.

Falling to the ground in a shredded heap,  
Unmade by the moonlight.  
Marrow erupts, overflowing my bones.  
My jaw splinters into a scream of daggers.  
Snout to the sky,  
This body hurtles away from the familiar,

Towards you.  
  
You are waiting at the shoreline,  
Unsheathed,  
Sea-foam swirling ‘round your ankles.  
(I have never known you to be without ankles.)

A lush simulacrum,  
From your salt-roped hair  
To your uncanny valley.  
But your eyes are too wet,  
And your mouth is too red.  
(And I’ll never know how all those fishermen were fooled.)

You allow me to approach,  
To lick grains of sand from your feet,  
As you trace the velvet of one cocked ear  
With a delicate finger.  
We have no common tongue,  
Just fascination.

I’ve never seen your true face,  
And I’ll never go looking,  
But I will show you my belly.  
I will bare my throat.  
We both know who the predator is, here;  
Sometimes I pray that you’ll eat me alive.

With wobbly limbs, you clamor onto my back,  
Twisting your fingers into thick fur,  
And we make for the woods.  
Deep in the dark, I shake you onto the moss,  
Start to snuffle along your spine.

What would happen if I bit you to the bone?  
Carved you out?  
Crawled inside your skin?

(How many men took your girl-shape to their beds,  
And flattered themselves that it trembled?)

What we do is monstrous.  
A howling, shameless blasphemy;  
Red, in tooth and claw.

Your heart doesn’t sit right in that body.  
It beats so hard, as if to break your ribs,  
To leap into my crooning throat,  
To make me choke.  
And, with my paws on your shoulder blades,  
Pressing you down…

I want it to.

• • • • • • • • • • 

The night passes.

Daybreak comes.

The first rays of light start to peel the beast away.  
I sense your scuttling retreat as I awaken fully,  
Screaming,  
Helplessly flayed by the dawn.

Supine and shaken,  
I realize I must have spent the night  
Lurching through some terrible, unspeakable dream.  
But now I must remember what is real:  
The road back home.  
The (open) door.  
The doorknob, cool under my hand.  
My hands.

(Hands that have never touched you;  
I am not some kind of _animal_.)

Blood and pine pitch on my thighs,  
I limp away,  
Raw and aching,  
And I do not look back.

Not even when you start to keen,  
Baying on your borrowed knees,  
Mournful  
At the man that I’ve become.

* * *


End file.
